Boy and the Begining

October 31, Australia, The Brindabellas, Harry aged 12...

Harry decided that it wouldn't hurt to do a bit of hiking though the Brindlabellas, clambering though low-relief high plains with its steep margins and slopes and fault aligned river valleys with deep gorges would present a fun challenge for a hike, as well as having natural outdoor showers and washing his cloths in the numerous waterfalls he found along the way as he headed in a general southerly direction towards the eastern watershed of the Murrumbidgee River.

He occasionally stumbled across the odd mountain men and women as well as other climbing enthusiasts and even one film crew that was using the scenery for a movie. Harry paused here the longest, watching, and even had the interesting opportunity to play as extra in the film playing some hapless bystander who was gutted with ten others by a spear. It was fun, and Harry made a mental note to see the movie when it was eventually released. He eventually continued on, confusing the scene director the next morning by the mysterious fruit tree in his shot that no one could explain.

Harry noticed that as he traveled higher or lower in the range that Vegetation changed with the altitude, low elevations carried red stringy bark, white gum, broad-leaved peppermint, candlebark and brittle gum while the moister sites had alpine ash, mountain gum, narrow-leaved peppermint, manna gum and brown barrel, with tree ferns, blackwood and sassafras in gullies. It was a rich dearth of wild fauna that hoisted quite a few cooking ingredients. Sometimes he would spend an entire day just rooting around, harvesting some of the plants to use in his cooking and its various medical applications (Harry had not been sick for some time, but he believed in being prepared for anything).

Harry was on Gingera Peak when it became to dark to risk traveling anymore. He looked around and finally spotted a small deep set cave.

Harry crawled in on his hands and knees until he came into a slightly wider area that gave him enough room, just barely, to stand straight in. He pulled out a sleeping bag, a lantern, a bottle of water, and a fish sandwich, settling in for the evening.

After he partook in his small meal, Harry put away the refuse to dispose of or reuse later, curled up under the cushy covers, crumbling to himself about uncomfortable pointy rocks, and fell asleep, exhausted by his latest day of extensive trekking.

Harry awoke in alarm a few hours later when the sound of rumbling was heard coming from the mouth of the cave.

At some point earlier, a man flying a private helicopter was driven to close by high winds and into the face of the mountain above the entrance to Harry's little stop over. The impact and subsequent fireball unleashed an avalanche of rock, some of which caught on the small lip of the cave and soundly blocked Harry's escape route.

When the rumbling and loud noises had ceased, Harry tentatively examined the thick clog of stone, coming to the conclusion that he wasn't getting out that way. He considered Lifting, but he was unsure if moving the rock around like that would cause another cave in.

Harry took some deep breaths to calm himself. Panicking would only make things worse.

Harry very carefully eyed the small space he was in.

While it was a tight fit and the main entrance was completely covered in rock, he found, with a bit of feeling around and exploration, that there was a small gap in the stone at his back.

Having little option, Harry flicked his tail uncertainly, but decided that it was his best, and only option at the moment, so he resolutely firmed his nerve, and squeezed through the gap.

He promptly fell a few feet into a dark pit before he caught himself with his magic and turned it more into a careful decent, pulling out his flashlight as well.

He continued this path downward, since there was nothing upwards but more stone, and after a long time in the dark, he was beginning to wonder if he was ever going to see the sun again, when something caught the light.

Harry blinked, as a wall of dazzling rainbows refracted in the light of his flashlight. It was startlingly beautiful, the swirls and patterns entrancing him, and he felt himself pausing and flying closer.

He reached out a hand and tentatively touched the smooth rainbow swirls, startled at how surprisingly smooth, and oddly warm. It made his fingers tingle.

Suddenly two glowing orbs as big as Harry was tall opened.

Fathomless star fields and galaxies swirled in those orbs that stared directly at and through him. Harry was helpless before the ancient gaze, unable to work up even the desire to break away, enraptured by that infinite gaze.

:Traveler: the eye's hissed.

Then without sound, without struggle or alarm, a dark maw opened in the rainbows and galaxies, and Harry was sucked inside (1).

Ooo ooo ooo

Harry came to, starring up into the most beautiful faces he had ever seen. Cold and harsh, in the vague shape of women made of ice and starlight.

5 of the seven figures glowed so blindingly bright, that it was hard for him to look directly into their faces, instead he focused on the two slightly dimmer faces, to save his vision (2).

"Umm...Hello?" Harry rasped, mightily confused, and not a little bit terrified and confused as to what the bloody hell had happened.

The seven women, shared a look.

"My, he is a young one," the slightly taller of the brightest 5 intoned, as he was helped to sit up by another and was guided shakily to a nearby fire, a welcome to his frost covered skin, he was freezing!

"It has been quite some time since the serpent has gifted us with a mortal though," another smaller women hummed, twirling a lock of long flowing pale hair.

"Not since the dingo hunter," another agreed, as she began examining Harry in fascination, seeming to be rather enchanted by his eyes, while another of the women fussed with his messy hair.

"This one is wild though," one of the dim ones approved, "young and wild! He will be ever so fascinating to tame sisters!"

The other six nodded, also exclaiming there approval.

Harry didn't like the sound of that, and everywhere they touched him, he became colder, and he didn't like the way that his skin was beginning to turn blue in spots.

Harry pulled himself away and backed up until his back hit a large boulder. He immediately tried to fly, but found that yet again his magic was blocked to him. He tried setting the advancing women on fire, freezing them, even utilizing his secret penguin power, but all yielded nothing.

In fact, his shout of seven rapid No's annoyed the beautiful ice like maidens. Nearby pine trees shivered and stretched out long talon-like branches, closing in all around him.

Suddenly, before the seven sisters or the trees could take him into their clutches, two parakeets appeared from the woods and perched on the boulder on either end behind his head and began to twitter (4).

"Hello-a-day! Hello-a-day!" The two birds sang happily, "We bring news! Great gossip!"

The seven maidens paused, the tallest, and what Harry in his mind assumed was the leader sniffed, "what would little feather chasers such as yourself have to share? Can't you see that we are busy?"

"Why its quite scandalous!" one of the parakeets, a blue one, conjoiled.

"It really will only take a few minutes to share, o great daughters of the mountain," the other parakeet, a green one, added.

The sisters frowned, but whether through boredom or actual curiosity, one of the sisters waved a had and grandly told them to go ahead.

The parakeets hopped onto Harry's head, Harry freezing, not wanting to jar them and scare them off in case he made the women mad.

The blue parakeet leaned forward and said in an enticing whisper, "Well you didn't hear it from me, but apparently the cranes have become inebriated and have begun quite a heated debate."

"Quite heated!" added the green parakeet with a solemn nod.

"Many of the great Crane Headsmen believe that their families produce the best and most beautiful of chicks," blue parakeet continued, "there was outcry and much feather ruffling, and they eventually pulled poor old owl into the whole business."

"Ever since the incident with who was the best bird, owl so tries to avoid these squabbles," Green parakeet said in aside, shaking his head in sympathy, "never manages to though." (5)

"Quite," his bother agreed.

"Why should we be interested in such mundane bird squabbles?" the eldest sister sniffed, starting to get bored.

"Oh! But my dear starlight maiden!" both birds gasped, "it only will get better!"

The sister grumbled but, seeing that her sisters were intrigued, waved a hand for them to continue.

"You see great ladies," The blue parakeet continued, "all their chicks looked the same. Scrawny, fluffy, and awkward on their bandy stilts. Even the finest of those agreed upon by each tribe, brought to bare before the discerning wisdom of the owl, and the old fellow, rightly so mind, told them he had never seen such a bunch of awkward looking plucked wrens in his life."

One or two of the sisters giggled at that.

"Oh yes, it is quite amusing," the Green parakeet agreed with a nod.

"The headsmen were less then pleased by this judgment, and gathered together to consult this revelation that their chicks were indeed rather awkward looking. This did not please their wives either, and took particular exception to the insult on their young, particularly by their own husbands," the blue parakeet shook his head.

Then the green parakeet took up the narrative, "the wives were much more sensible, as is the way with their breed, and pointed out that they were cranes and that all chicks were born the same and had been for all moons and suns that rose and set at the shore of the Great River in which the various crane tribes claimed there territory."

"This got the husbands to thinking, and eventually they went back to the Owl, who was quite annoyed, and asked the wise fellow: "what is the most beautiful creature to ever walk the great Dream?" (5).

"The owl of course hemmed and hawed about eye of the beholder and such, but that didn't satisfy the cranes, so the owl testily regaled them of the great beauty of the seven sisters, daughters of the mountain, birthed from the sacred river of icy water and starlight. Desired by all, but wives to none."

A hearing this, the sisters, perked up a bit, but the eldest still was unmoved, drawling, "We have heard this before. That we are the most beautiful creatures dreamed of is not a surprise."

"Oh but then you'll want to hear this last bit," The green parakeet whistled, eyes bright with excitement.

"The cranes were so impressed with the story of the great sisters seven, that they asked how it was that they to could hatch such fine chicks as those?"

"Well, the owl was very much annoyed by this point, that in a fit of pique he told the snapped at them: "the only way that you will have chicks as fine as the stars in the sky is to mate with the river from which they arose, and if it is impressed by your wooing and lovemaking, then perhaps you shall all be granted with chicks as fine!"'

"Of course, this was said in sarcasm, but cranes were never particularly attuned to such nuances, particularly drunk, so all the male cranes able-bodied enough left their wives and chicks to woo your birthing place to win them the finest chicks of all."

"WHAT!" the seven sisters screeched, recoiling in horror, "They dare to defile our sacred birthplace with their unworthy attentions!?" quite forgetting about the boy in their midst.

All seven women stood straight and as one turned to the thick trunk of a nearby tree, and stepped upon the inviting branches, leaping upwards like gazelles, the tree rising with them high into the sky, so high Harry couldn't see the tops, and was surprised when seven stars joined the others in the sky, 5 bright ones and two dimmer ones in the constellation he recognized vaguely as the Pleiades constellation he recognized from one of his books.

Harry was left alone in the campsite, the fire still cheerfully crackling, feeling returning to his extremities and the two parakeets perched on his head, laughing uproariously.

Ooo ooo ooo

The brothers joined Harry in front of the fire, and introduced themselves as the Bil-Bil brothers. They had told him how they had once been boys like himself, but had been swallowed by the Rainbow Serpent, a prominent figure that was described as a great creator whom straddled many plains of existence, and were turned into parakeets throughout the whole business when their tribe cut them out of the snake's stomach. Which in turn released the power of creating oneself from one form into another (shape shifting) into the world.

The brothers always tried to help the occasional traveller that the serpent swallowed and spat out, feeling sympathy for others who'd had similar experiences in the belly of the beast, though according to them the snake never spat out anymore parakeets into the Dream, the name of his new location.

Trying to get any other name of where he was bore nothing but mutterings of Dream in various contexts, before he gave up on that. Eventually Harry asked if there was a way out of where ever he was. The parakeets perked at this, and he was lead to a dirt path lined on either side by Gum trees.

They told him to follow the path until he reached a place called The Great Stairs, which would lead him the way out of...wherever he was.

Unfortunately, the brothers weren't inclined to help him further. Their sympathy only went so far, and they thought that mortals were a rather boring lot, preferring to enjoy playing pranks on others in this world.

Still, Harry did feel grateful to the birds, and reached into the pouch with his seeds and handed one to the birds.

"This is peach seed, but don't eat it," he warned them, "when you come to a place that you happen to like, drop it into the dirt and give it space."

The green parakeet took the seed carefully in its beak, and the brothers flew off, while Harry turned to face the road, pulled out a walking stick from inside his, fortunately still functioning bag, and set off.

Ooo ooo ooo

As he traveled, the new Hidden Place that Harry found himself in was vaster then anything he had ever come across before. Three days of constant walking, and the sparse rocky forest gave way to sprawling fields, and still it stretched long and endlessly in the distance. He was beginning to wonder if he would ever find his way out before he celebrated his next birthday.

Harry frowned. He'd found a rather alarming inability to remember the date or days of the week, right along with his inability to yet again use his magic.

He had also realized that the magical items with him were subject to some sort of strange infliction induced by the place as he had lost the magic speedy slippers when they had sprang from his hands and run off all on their own, he'd come to realize that wherever he was, it was rather finicky in making him take the long and hard route.

Despite his setbacks though, he had to admit, that he rather liked the rolling visual scenery of the grasslands that stretched out before him. It was certainly better then the creepy forest. These grasslands were at least temperate and the land was filled with bushes which Harry recognized carried edible berries from his time trekking through the Outback.

Despite it's pleasant look, Harry knew that there was likely some sort of danger or challenge in the swaying waves of green. His sheer dumb luck was rather on the nose with those sorts of things.

After a time, Harry was starting to get tired with all the walking and set about looking for a place to set up his sleeping bag when he heard the sounds in the near distance of men shouting, women laughing, children shrieking in delight, and babies crying.

Harry, leery, but still attracted by the sounds of civilization, made his way to a collection of 20-30 grass huts that were gathered in a loose circle, facing inwards with the occasional small fire nearby, lightening the area against the coming darkness of the evening.

Upon entering the small village though, Harry was surprised to find that it was suddenly very silent, but for the occasional chirp of a cricket, the rustle of grass in a passing breeze, and the crack-snap of wood in the fires.

Harry's fingers trailed towards the handle of the sickle at his side as he wearily eyed the empty huts and the plump grasses that were not flattened by the passage of feet that the earlier sounds had indicated.

"Right, well, this is definitely a red flag," he said to himself, and smartly turned around about to high tail it out of there. Only to find, to his surprise, a man standing in his way.

He was tall and gangling with ink dark skin, but for a patch of pale white on his throat and upper chest. The man smiled genially and bowed his head.

"Greetings young hunter, what brings you to poor Weedah's humble village?".

"Er, I thought I heard people here, but it looks like I was wrong," Harry replied, eyeing the man wearily, trying to find a way to edge around him, but the subtle shifts of the man's posture seemed to somehow always block his exit without actually appearing to be doing so.

"Oh yes," the man said sadly, "Weedah's home has only Weedah, no others."

Harry frowned, "then if no one else is here, why did I here the sound of people?"

"You have likely been traveling for a long ways in the hot rays of the sun then being alone in the bush, as the shadows fall, a man breeds strange fancies. See by the light of this fire, where are your fancies now? No women laugh, no babies cry, only I, Weedah, talk. " (6)

Harry felt uncomfortable when the man wore a distinctly despairing look. It did sound rather sad, and Harry felt a flare of compassion despite his misgivings, and the guy looked so desperate for good conversation, that Harry allowed himself to be lead closer to a larger bonfire in the centre of the empty village.

Weedah shared stories of his various hunts while Harry shared stories of some of his adventures, and as they talked, Harry was subtly shifted closer and closer to the fire until finally Harry was feeling distinctly uncomfortable in the increasing heat.

It was then that Harry started to cotton on what was happening as he more carefully paid attention to his host's movements and found that very carefully the man had been herding him closer to the flames without him realizing it. Harry knew then that at any moment Weedah would strike and he was larger, faster and more skilled then he was, so Harry thought quickly about what to do.

Weedah was just tensing slightly to do just that when Harry suddenly said "Weedah, yes I remember now!" he exclaimed suddenly, "you're the Great Weedah!"

Weedah paused in his grabbing reach and cocked his head head curiously, and sounding clearly surprised asked "truly? Others speak of me? what do they say?"

Seeing that the man was properly distracted, Harry shifted his weight slightly and continued to gush "They say that you are the cleverest and mightiest warrior to have ever dug toes into the earth! I am honoured sir!"

Weedah puffed his chest out, and gestured for him to continue.

"Weedah they say," Harry said in an awed hush, causing the enthralled Weedah to lean down closer to the smaller male, "say that you can sweet talk a crocodile into hoping into your belly, and the very stars themselves into your bed, is it really true?"

While Weedah had never really done these things, he did like the sound of these stories about himself, so much so that he readily agreed to their validity and said "of course! Weedah can do all those things indeed!"

Harry portrayed even more awe and asked worshipfully "oh? but how can you do all that? Your tongue must be silvered indeed!"

Weedah, not familiar with this term asked "what does this mean? Silvered tongue?"

Harry looked around shiftily and gestured the man closer until they were nearly touching noses "where I come from, its well known that only the cleverest, trickiest speaker has a silvered tongue, do you have a silver tongue great Weedah?"

Weedah stuck out his tongue to see if he indeed had such a fine marker, but due to the fact that his eyes were wider set then that of other carnivores and mortal men, he could not see his own tongue.

Seeing his difficulties, Harry offered to look for him and bade Weedah to stick out his tongue, which Weedah obliged eagerly.

Seeing his chance, Harry grabbed Weedah's long thin pointed tongue and with the sickle he'd had stowed at his waist, sliced the appendage off with a quick slice.

Weedah screamed and blood dripped from his mouth, sizzling in the near by flames. While the shocked host rolled around on the ground, clutching his mouth, Harry looked down on his writhing form coldly before he turned and ran away into the darkness.

Harry traveled until sunrise seeing no sign of a vengeful Weedah.